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A man was sentenced to 18 years in prison for sex trafficking two minors from the Hudson Valley.

Mark Castagnetta of New Paltz, 52, drew the 218-month prison sentence along with 218 months in prison along with a lifetime term of supervised release for child sex trafficking, announced Joon H. Kim, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and William F. Sweeney Jr., the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

It was not announced where the two children reside, but Kim praised the investigative work of the FBI’s Westchester County Safe Streets Task Force, the Westchester County Human Trafficking Task Force and the Westchester Department of Social Services for "their valuable cooperation in this matter."

Kim called Castagnetta's conduct "reprehensible" and said that Castagnetta “callously robbed two children of their innocence, inducing them to travel to his home in New Paltz, New York, where he not only sexually abused them, but forced them to have sex with other men in exchange for drugs and money."

From 2014 through July 2016, Castagnetta engaged in trafficking of minors by contacting two minor victims through an adult fetish website and enticing them to travel to his residence to engage in a sexual relationship in which he played the role of “slave master” and the victim played the role of “slave,” Kim said.

Once there, Castagnetta engaged in abusive sexual conduct with the victims, supplied the victims with illegal drugs, and induced them to engage in sexual conduct with other individuals in exchange for drugs and money, Kim added. Castagnetta also produced an image containing child pornography of one of the victims, according to Kim.

In imposing the sentence, Judge Cathy Seibel characterized the defendant’s misconduct as some of the most serious conduct she had encountered during her time on the bench.